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 106 THE DECLINE AND FALL the example, of Fritigeni. The just apprehension, that he himself might be surrounded, and overwhelmed, by the arms of hostile and unknown nations, compelled Satuminus to relinquish the siege of the Gothic camp : and the indignant Visigoths, breaking from their confinement, satiated their hunger and revenge, by the repeated devastation of the fruitful country, which extends above three hundred miles from the banks of the Danube to the straits of the Hellespont. '^'^ The sagacious Fritigem had successfully appealed to the passions, as well as to the interest, of his Barbarian allies ; and the love of rapine and the hatred of Rome seconded, or even prevented, the eloquence of his ambassadors. He cemented a strict and useful alliance with the great body of his countrymen, who obeyed Alatheus and Saphrax as the guardians of their infant king ; the long animosity of rival tribes was suspended by the sense of their common interest ; the independent part of the nation was associated under one standard ; and the chiefs of the Ostrogoths appear to have yielded to the superior genius of the general of the Visigoths. He obtained the formidable [TaifaU] aid of the Taifalae, whose military renown was disgraced and polluted by the public infamy of their domestic manners. Every youth, on his entrance into the world, was united by the ties of honourable friendship, and brutal love, to some warrior of the tribe ; nor could he hope to be released from this unnatural connexion, till he had approved his manhood by slaying, in single combat, a huge bear, or a wild boar of the forest.^*^ But the most powerful auxiliaries of the Goths were drawn from the camp of those enemies who had expelled them from their native seats. The loose subordination, and extensive possessions, of the Huns and the Alani delayed the conquests, and distracted the councils, of that victorious people. Several of the hords were allured by the liberal promises of Fritigem ; and the rapid oavalry of Scythia added weight and energy to the steady and strenuous efforts of the Gothic in- fantry. The Sarmatians, who could never forgive the successor of Valentinian, enjoyed and increased the general confusion ; and a seasonable irruption of the Alemanni into the provinces 85Ammianus, xxxi. 8. 86 Hanc Taifalorum gentem turpem, et obscense vitas flagitiis ita accipimus mersam ; ut apud eos nefandi concubitus foedere copulentur mares puberes, aetatis viriditatem in eoruni pollutis usibus consnmpturi. Porro, si qui jam adultus aprum exceperit solus, vel interemit ursum immanem, colluNione liberatur incesti. Ammian. xxxi. 9. Among the Greeks likewise, more especially among the Cretans, the holy bands of friendship were confirmed, and sullied, by unnatural love.